I Love Pho — Restaurant in Halifax

A 4/5 stars rating should be safe, right? I read both the good and bad reviews before heading out to try this restaurant. I wanted pho so badly that I figured the bad reviews were caused by an off-day by the staff or maybe the reviewer was grumpy. My mistake.

Here is my experience: Restaurant - small size and currently at half-capacity (Covid restrictions) so there were only two other tables with diners. I was fine with the decor, my focus was on pho and wasn't expecting or looking for fine-dining.

Food - my wife and I each ordered pho with strips of rare beef and had a deep-fried spring roll. The spring rolls were the frozen kind that I can get at any grocery store. Fail. The bean sprouts and thai basil had turned so they looked inedible. We did not add them to our soup. The beef was decent but not cut thin enough so it was very chewy after sitting in the broth. The noodles were great but again, they're out of a package so hard to mess that up. Now onto the broth, by far the most important aspect of a good pho. It was beef stock and as far as I could tell that's all it was. Pho broth should have lots of subtle scents and flavours that come from star anise, cloves, coriander, ginger and cinnamon. This had none of that.

Service - full disclosure, I'm a pretty generous tipper. Almost always 20% because I understand it's a tough job, tips are often shared with other staff and the hourly rate isn't enough to live on. Twice in my life I have not tipped at all. Today was one of them. She was disinterested to the point of being rude. A robot could replace her and I would feel more humanity. She took our order and set it on the table. She did the same for the other two tables. She spent the rest of her time behind her booth plucking away at her phone. When we finished eating I set my credit card on the corner of the table to get her attention (since she was behind me). When that didn't work I kept turning around hoping to make eye contact. That took a full ten minutes and she says barely audibly - you have to come here.

Just an awful experience and you couldn't pay...

My husband and I have been loving this place for years, but it was a terrible experience today. VERY DISAPPOINTED!!

We were in a rush today so we tried to preorder before we got there. They said they don’t take any preorders for dine in but take out is available. We didn’t have much time to wait there so we were okay with paying extra for the packing and the containers to order the take out.

When we arrived the food was ready. We sit down to enjoy the take-out. They didn’t give us any utensils until we asked. The server was super rude even though we would take all the takeout garbage out when we finished.

A big & thick piece of cooked meat in my noodle was cold as it was just taken out from the fridge. I talked to the server but he insisted that it was supposed to put in the soup, which meant they did serve the meat directly from the fridge to the customers. The only way you could reheat the meat was to put it in your soup and hopefully it could get warm enough to eat.

The lady who claimed to be the boss came out from the kitchen had the same explain to the COLD piece of meat.

We didn’t even get a glass of...

1 start for the following:

ordered a big take out (7 pho) for pick up at 6;30pm and ended up waiting for 20min the guy infront of the counter didn't greet me or say anything when I entered, assume I had the big order hidden charge of $1 for each take out pho and didn't even write it on the receipt ( added a picture for proof, the price is written by me)

To the new owners:

Please take a look at the reviews and know where the issues are. The 1 stars reviews are popping up more recently, this place used to be loved by many. If you want to succeed in the serving business, please listen to the customers feedback, instead being defensive on the phone when I suggest to let the customers know about the $1 fee for take out. Be transparent, be honest, this is Canada, otherwise customers will feel cheated.

Extra note: he asked if me I am new to Canada? Does it matter if I am new or not? Lol, what are you trying to indicate? Advice for you, please listen to customer's feedbacks before you lose...